IN the Wars...
I started April with a tooth abcess. I'm limping into May with a sprained ankle! Saturday 6th of May saw the annual May Day celebrations in Lustleigh: there's an annual procession around the village of little girls and young women all dressed in (virginal) white and little boys and young men carrying sticks(!). They are escorted by a brass band and Spring songs are sung at various points along the route. When the procession arrived back at the Orchard, the girls and boys danced around the maypole making pretty patterns with the multicoloured ribbons. Following these frolics, the May Queen was crowned - she sits on a throne under a flowery canopy which sits on top of a huge rock in the middle of the Orchard. This great hunk of granite is distinguished by being adorned with all the names of previous May Queens carved on to its surface.
Yes I know I ought to have taken pics of this, but it was awful weather - the rain held off for the dancing and crowning of the queen, but p****d down thereafter. It was too dark and miserable for any good piccies. I was doing my duty on the lucky dip stall and my cash box (a plastic margarine tub) filled with two inches of water inside 10minutes I'll swear. I beat a hasty retreat to the village hall for a cream tea (obligatory in Devon) and watched the rain pour outside the door on to my two soggy doggies. Having done my duty as far as fundraising goes, I was on my way to the pub (where the morris dancers had also beaten a hasty retreat) - when I realised I'd forgotten the dog lead - t'was lying on the floor under the chair I'd recently vacated. I turned around to leap down the concrete steps back into the hall - these steps were awash in water. I aquaplaned off the bottom step and landed on my ankle in a way it wasn't designed to go. I heard it go pop!
I sat down in the rain and felt all queasy - several onlookers helped me to hobble back into the hall. I had not one but TWO GPs come to my rescue and both diagnosed a sprained (not broken) ankle. One of them kindly offered me (and the two wet smelly labradors) a lift home. I was torn between doing the sensible thing (going home and carrying out the RICE treatment) - and meeting my mates in the pub. It was a hard decision, but I went home :-(

This horrible picture is what it looked like after three days! It's still really swollen and purple and yellow from my calf down to my toes. You really wanted to see that, I know, sorry. I'm just walking on it now, after a week and a half. There go my plans to get really fit before my sis and I walk 80 miles of the coastal path in June - we're walking from St Ives to the Lizard. She'll just have to give me a piggy back!

Here's a prettier picture of Tilly and Sydney:

This is how they sleep, in the hallway - they have a bed each, but Syd gets lonely, so he climbs on top of his mum!